


When the run goes down

by persephx



Series: One small run for a man [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (within like a relationship), Books, But also, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, Human Disaster Clint Barton, M/M, One Shot, Pizza, Romantic Clint Barton, Sequel, Two Shot, book nerd bucky barnes, bookstagram, but because it's a sequel, i guess, idek, somehow bucky ended up having a bookstagram acc so, that's a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 06:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephx/pseuds/persephx
Summary: There's a date. It lasts ten hours.





	When the run goes down

**Author's Note:**

> This part was a lot more difficult to write than the first one (I had to start three times) and definitely longer. I hope you enjoy it!

When Clint got to the train station they’d decided to meet, Carroll St. Station, he saw Bucky propped against a wall, waiting for him. He smiled and approached to him. He’d thought of arriving a few minutes before, but Nat had distracted him by giving him a judgy look that had resulted in him changing his shirt three times; by the time she approved of his outfit, he was on the verge of arriving late. He was kind of glad she’d made him change – Bucky looked amazing. He was wearing a purple shirt and dark jeans and Clint wanted to climb him like a tree. Instead of doing that, when he was standing in front of his date, he waved his hand – because he’s an idiot – and pointed to the exit.

“Shall we?” he asked, he could feel his cheeks reddening. He hadn’t even said hello (or at least properly), this was supposed to be a date and he was not going to get a second one if he acted like that. “Hi.” Much better, he noticed, sarcastic even in his inner dialogue.

“Hey,” Bucky answered, smiling softly. There was an edge of nervousness to his smile and Clint felt at least a little bit better. It was a date, it made sense that they were nervous, both of them. “So,” Bucky broke the silence, “where are you taking me?”

When they’d talked about going out on a date – on the phone, a couple of days after Clint had blurted out how he wanted to see Bucky in a more romantic way and not in an I-crashed-into-you-while-doing-a-YouTube-challenge way – Clint had told him that he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and hadn’t told Bucky about it. Over the days between the crash and the date, Clint had learnt a lot about Bucky, and he hoped to learn even more that night. The one thing he knew was that Bucky liked books. He was a book nerd. A huge one. He’d even confessed to Clint that he had what was called a _bookstagram_ account. And Clint had, of course, figuratively run to see it. It was pretty, the feed was mostly black and white but there were some color accents in a few pictures and even if Clint wasn’t specially interested in books, he could appreciate the aesthetic.

Clint’s plan was to take Bucky to a book shop. To be truth, knowing that Bucky was so into the book world, he probably already knew it, Books are Magic was one of the _instagrammy_ bookstores in Brooklyn and there was a wall that had the name of the store written in it and that was featured in the feeds of practically everyone that had been there. Clint knew the place because he had been there with Nat a couple of times, and he had even bought books! It was a nice place to be _and_ it was conveniently near where they were going to get dinner.

Now, dinner was what Clint was excited for.

If he were a less responsible human – and Nat didn’t babysit him as much as she did – he would go to Lucali every day. Or week. As it were, he went there at least once every month. That might sound like too much, but you have to understand – it’s the best pizza in New York. Even fancy _cuisine_ magazines thought so. And the truth is that Clint loved everything about the place, the pizza, the calzone, the atmosphere. Hell, he even liked how the business was run. The thing about Lucali was that you couldn’t call and make a reservation. You had to be there before five so they could take your name and phone and they’d call you when they had a free table.

So, Clint’s plans for the evening where to, first, go to Lucali and get their name put in the list, then go to the bookstore and then… Well, then Clint would let out his romantic streak and finish romancing his date. Or so he hoped.

“I’m trying to surprise you,” Clint finally answered, when he realized he’d been silent for too long. “You’ll like it.” Then he thought about it. “I hope.”

Bucky’s expression softened, and he smiled, “I’m sure I will.” Then, well, it wasn’t like his expression had lost that _softness_ but it had gained a little bit of teasing too. “I for sure wasn’t expecting you to want to meet at 3pm.”

“3:30pm,” Clint corrected, because, yeah, he guessed it was weird. At Bucky’s squinted eyes, he shrugged. “Well, I warned you it was going to be a long date… You’ll see why we have to be this early soon.”

Once they arrived at Henry Street, where the restaurant was, they walked towards the line that was already forming. Bucky gave Clint a look but didn’t say anything.

“Let’s go get a coffee there, before we get in line.” Again, Bucky raised his eyebrows. But he nodded and didn’t say anything.

They went to Henry’s Local, and they got a coffee each – neither liked sugar in it, Clint had discovered after he’d texted Bucky one morning, whining about having to wake up so early that not even coffee could make it better – and went to the line.

Clint saw Bucky looking at the building and the people, maybe a little unsure, and decided it was time to tell him at least what _that_ was about. “Okay, so, this is where we’re going to have dinner,” he told the other man. Who frowned. Then looked at the very closed building. Then back at Clint.

“At 4pm?”

Clint snorted. “No. They don’t take reservations and you’ll see how many people end up in this queue by the time they open. You have to get here early if you want to have dinner before ten.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Bucky says, but he still looks like he thinks it’s weird.

“You’ll see. It’s good, I promise.” Clint paused. “Actually, it’s considered the best pizza place in New York. Second best in the country. So you can’t criticize them.”

The other man snorted. “I can’t criticize their pizza, I guess, but I can say whatever I want about their management.”

They stayed in line for another hour, but once Mark Iacono arrived – Clint wasn’t a fanboy, he just knew his name because he was the damn best –, the line moved pretty quickly. Clint could see that the apprehension had been leaving his date’s body slowly, to the point that he was now mainly relaxed and joking around with Clint. It really did feel like they’d been friends for years. Clint didn’t have that with people, not unless they were Nat – who _had been_ his friend for years – or Kate – who had no sense of shame – not even with Wanda or Pietro, even if they were really good friends now.

“Okay so this guy is kind of a pizza purist,” Clint explained as they slowly moved towards the lady taking note of everyone’s phone numbers. “He doesn’t like weird pizza flavor so he literally has two dishes and you can choose to add some other ingredients, like mushrooms or whatever, they have a list.”

“Where did you bring me?” Bucky asks with laughter in his voice.

“You’ll like it, really. It’s just a heads up.”

“It’s just a heads up, he says, bringing me to my imminent death.”

A laugh is startled out of Clint and he shakes his head, a smile in his lips. “Oh my god,” he says, head still shaking. “You’re so dramatic. If you die it’ll be because the food is too good.”

“Sure thing, running guy.”

When it’s their turn with the lady, she smiles at them, winks at Clint – he goes there, _very_ often, so she kind of knows him – and takes his number. She tells them they can bring wine if they want and then they’re walking away from the restaurant and to the bookstore.

“That was… anticlimactic,” Bucky murmured, glancing back to the beginning of the line.

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know, after so much waiting I was expecting something more. It barely took a minute to be done.” It almost sounded like he was whining, and Clint genuinely wanted to listen to that tone again – not in a weird sexual way, he wanted Bucky to be comfortable with him. He wanted Bucky to whine like a baby as much as his heart wanted him to.

He was kind of going too fast, he knew it; it was their first date and Clint was already wanting to see Bucky in a domestic setting. It’s kind of creepy if he thinks about it too much. It’s creepy how much he wants to be over with this step and get to be just lying in the sofa in their pajamas, just, chilling and not really doing anything. The kind of thing you do with someone once you’re together for years. Clint also couldn’t help but think that he’d never been the kind to have nice things either, not even with relationships. So he doubted that they’d ever really get to that point.

“So, what’s our next stop, date?” Bucky asked, getting Clint out of his stupor. He’d been smiling for the whole date, and it had been an hour and a half already, so that had to mean something, right? Everything was going well and maybe Clint would get a second date after all.

“You’ll see when we get there.” Or probably before that, when he recognized the direction they were going.

It didn’t take them more than fifteen minutes to get to the bookstore and by then Clint was sure he could see Bucky vibrate with excitement. Good, he really wanted to see that feeling stay the same throughout the whole date. He really did.

“Oh I love this place,” Bucky muttered once they were in the front of the store. He looked at Clint and gave him his biggest smile yet. Clint decided in that moment that, if everything went well, he would do as much as it was in his power to make Bucky smile like that every day. It was a beautiful smile that made a warm cocoon for Clint and then wrapped him up in it, as soft as anything could be. He wanted to sigh with contentment, but he had to maintain the illusion that he was sane, so he held it in. He’d be sighing enough when he went back home and was alone, where he couldn’t scare any possible romantic partners.

They walked into the shop and browsed around, there was a gasp and suddenly Bucky had graved Clint’s hand and had dragged him towards another shelve. He took a book out without dropping his hand and Clint felt warmth in his chest again. Was he really this infatuated already? Maybe not infatuated, invested?

“I’ve been wanting to read this for two years, but I couldn’t find it anywhere,” the man told him, turning the book to look at the back. Clint couldn’t see the title, but he saw the thickness and knew that he wouldn’t be opening something like that anytime soon. It was cute to see Bucky so excited, though.

“You want to buy it?” Clint asked, Bucky looked back at the book and bit his lower lip, thinking. He looked like he needed some gently good-minded pushing. “If you haven’t found it any of the times you’ve looked for it, you should totally get it. It’s not even that expensive.” It wasn’t cheap either, but books weren’t cheap anyways.

Bucky looked at him and then back at the book. “Yeah, I think I’ll get it.”

They ended up spending forty-five minutes at the store, and Bucky bought the book in the end. And he was still holding Clint’s hand. Clint thought that maybe he hadn’t noticed, but then, when his date saw something that he liked or made a joke, his hand would tighten its hold. That meant that he probably knew about the handholding. And he was probably okay with it. He probably even liked it, if he hadn’t made up an excuse to drop Clint’s hand already. And how did people even deal with feelings? Really?

Then the restaurant called Clint and they made their way there, still holding hands.

“So… How much can you eat?” Clint asked once they were nearing the restaurant.

Bucky looked at him from de side of his eye and shrugged. “Depends on the day…” Then, slower and softer, “usually a lot, thought.”

“Great! Then we can order the pizza _and_ the calzone!”

The other man looked at him surprised, then nodded and shrugged at the same time. “We can…” he said, hesitantly.

“I mean. It’s my ideal order. One giant amazing pizza and one very-filling calzone.”

They reached the place and only had to wait three minutes before they were being led towards their table. They hadn’t gotten anything to drink – which they told you when they wrote down your name, you could bring wine or beer with you or just order at the restaurant. Once they were sitting, Bucky looked around with a smile.

“It looks cool,” he said.

“Less like it’s the place where you’re going to die?” Clint asked jokingly.

Bucky hummed and glanced around again. “I haven’t decided yet.” He played with the napkins and for some reason Clint felt nervous again. “It _is_ filled with people, though.”

“That’s because it’s a great place, and you’re going to love it.”

“You keep saying that. What if I don’t like pizza?” Bucky was smiling and it was obvious that it wasn’t the case, but Clint imagined how it would all have gone – terribly wrong. He didn’t shiver, but he was kind of close to it.

“Then it’d be over before it could start,” Clint answers, also joking.

His date faked being offended and made the motion of standing up – all part of the joke, of course – but Clint grabbed his hand before he could.

They looked intensely at each other for a few seconds.

Clint was sure those clear eyes could see the insides of his brain. He was sure that Bucky had seen how he wanted to be with him and now thought he was pathetic. Damn, he hadn’t even realized what he was doing after it was too late and now he had made it weird. Except. Maybe it was his imagination, but it didn’t look like Bucky thought it was weird. He was just focusing on Clint’s eyes and he was even smiling, just a little bit, but still a smile.

The moment was broken in the most cliché way, the waitress came to take their order.

Bucky let Clint talk and he ordered both the pizza and the calzone without any added toppings because he wanted the other man to get his first experience with Lucali untainted. Even plain, the pizza was damn good, and the calzone was just phenomenal.

Clint dug in as soon as he saw hesitation start to make an appearance in Bucky again. He didn’t know what that was about, but he really didn’t like people to get uncomfortable around him, even less if he was hoping to get lucky with said people. Get lucky in the purest way, of course. Now that he thought of it, if he ended up having Bucky want to see him again, he would have gotten lucky.

“Damn,” Bucky muttered after his first bite. He took another. “Damn,” he said louder.

“Good, right?” Clint asked, taking a bite himself. It _was_ good, after all, this was Lucali, it was the best pizza from New York.

With his mouth still full, Bucky nodded. They ate mostly in silence, although they made some passing comments about the other people at the restaurant and the food. Once they finished with the pizza, they both sighed.

“That was good,” Bucky sounded almost dreamy.

Clint nodded. “Wait till you try the calzone.”

The man looked up and took a breath. “I forgot we were also having that.” He rubbed his stomach. “I might have overestimated by eating-powers.”

“It’ll be so good that you’ll want to eat it until your stomach hurts,” Clint promised. And it was kind of a statement based on a true story, but nobody needed to know that.

When the waitress brought the calzone, they ended up finishing it, but by the end of it, Bucky was rubbing his stomach in a way that Clint knew too well.

“I’m stuffed,” Bucky said, then groaned. “I’m back to thinking you want to kill me.”

“Believe me, that’s the last thing I want to do,” Clint’s treacherous mouth said, before he could stop himself. Thankfully, Bucky just laughed and didn’t say anything that would destroy Clint’s pride or dignity.

“Do you have anything else planned or is it now when we part ways?” Bucky asks once they have paid. They were making their way outside and when Clint said goodbye to the lady that had taken note of his number before that evening – he didn’t know her name and was too awkward to ask – winked at him again.

“I have something else planned,” Clint told him and looked at his watch, it was half past seven, which was just perfect.

“But you’re not going to tell me what it is, right?” Clint’s only answers are a smirk and a shrug, so Bucky huffed, which made him laugh. “The next time we see each other it’ll be you who doesn’t know what is happening,” Bucky threatened.

It was a playful threat, but it also let Clint know that he was doing something right and that Bucky wanted to see him again. He wanted to have a second date.

“And I’ll probably whine less than you,” he teased. It was not true, but he had to say something, if only because he didn’t want Bucky to change his opinion on that second date. It’d be weird, probably, if the other man knew about Clint’s excitement for their not-even-relationship to happen.

It was Clint this time who took Bucky’s hand and interlaced their fingers. Then, he guided him towards the Brooklyn Bridge Park. As they made their way, the sun started to set, making the sky pink and the light softer. It didn’t go past him how Bucky was looking at the sky as they walked. He was going to love it.

“I think I know where you’re taking me,” Bucky said, speaking softly, almost in a whisper.

Clint hummed.

When they got to the park, Bucky gave his hand a squeeze and, when he looked at the other man, he could see his smile and his eyes shining. He really did look beautiful.

“I’m glad you agreed to the date,” Clint said. They were walking the path that would take them to the part of the park that showed the river. And Manhattan’s skyline. In the sunset. Nobody could say that Clint didn’t know how to romance someone – Nat would say it, but that was just because she hadn’t been on that end of the situation.

“I am too,” Bucky said, squeezing his hand again. “This was perfect.”

“It isn’t over yet,” he reminds him.

They arrived where Clint had been wanting to go and he could hear Bucky sigh. It really was a beautiful sight. The sunset was still happening, a line of red in the lowest part of the sky, darker blue on the highest, and Manhattan thrown somewhere in there. The colors from the sky were being reflected by the water and it all looked like a dream.

“You took me into a tourist date,” Bucky said, breaking the silence they’d been in. Clint snorted and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “You did! And you’re ending it with the typical New York City experience skyline. It’s a tourist date.” He sounds almost like he’s disgusted.

“Oh, you loved it,” he only sounds confident because he’s joking.

There was a moment of silence and then a hum. “I suppose I did.”

Clint turns to Bucky, only to see that he’s already looking at him, and just like in films, the lean into each other and kiss, with New York’s skyline right in front of him. If Clint was a sap, he’d say Bucky was even more beautiful than it.

They pull away. Clint sends a little smile at his date, who is flushed, but also smiling. He squeezed his hand and leaned in again. And again. And once more.

They leave the park at ten, saying goodbye with a kiss, and the month's Sunday after their date sees them lying on Clint’s sofa in their pajamas, just doing nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Both Lucali and Books are Magic are real places in Brooklyn, I went to both when I went to New York back in September and they're both great! Lucali was an experience, I'll tell you that, but omg, the pizza, the calzone... My friend and I took what we couldn't finish with us and had it for breakfast the next day. It was great.
> 
> And, well, of course, the park is also real.
> 
> Basically this whole thing is based in one of the afternoons that I spent in New York, with the exception that my companion was a friend and not a date lol.


End file.
